Here’s a Tech Tip that some parent’s might be interested in. If you
have young children, there may be sites that you do not want your child to
have access to. One of these sites you have no doubt heard about –
myspace.com. Well, if you don’t know what myspace is, check out this
link:

If you are concerned about this site with youngsters in your house, there
are some simple ways to block it on your computer. Here is one way.

When you type in the domain name, myspace.com, your computer
has to ask your internet service provider (ISP) for the IP address.
An IP address is a series of 4 numbers separated by dots (Example:
64.236.24.28). Your ISP has a Domain Name Server (DNS) which looks
up IP addresses for domain names. When it gets the IP address for the
domain name you typed in the Address Bar, it can contact the site and it
will appear on your computer.

Here’s an example: You type in cnn.com. Your computer contacts the
DNS server at your ISP and they find out that the IP address
is 64.236.24.28. It contacts that site with that IP address and CNN appears
on your screen. Pretty cool!

OK, so what if you could give a false IP address for myspace.com – or
any other website, for that matter.. Then your computer would not be able
to connect to the site. Well, you can.

Well, there is a file on your computer called the “Hosts” file. It
acts just like a DNS server. When you want to go to a website, you
type in the name of the site (the Domain Name) and when you press Enter,
your computer looks in the Hosts file first to see if the IP address
is there. Well, of course, it will not be there – unless you have put it
there.

Well, you can put it there. You can open the Hosts file and
add any domain names and IP addresses you want.

Here’s how:

First, you need to find a file on your
computer called “Hosts.”
If you are using Windows XP, it is located in the C Drive,
in the Windowsfolder, in the System32 folder,
in the Driversfolder, and in the etcfolder.
(Did you get that? Here’s exactly what you do: Double-click on the
C Drive, double-click on the WindowsFolder,
double-click on the System32Folder, double-click
on the DriversFolder and double-click on the etcFolder. Whew – that’s a lot of double- clicking.)

If you are using Windows 2000, follow this path:
c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

If you are using Windows 95, 08, or ME, follow this path:
c:\windows\hosts

Did you find the Hostsfile?
Now double-click on the Hostsfile. You will get
an “Open With” window asking you to “choose the program you want
to use to open this file.” Scroll down to Notepad and
double-click on that.

OK – as you see, the Host file is
open.

There is some data in this file
already – mostly information stuff. Read it if you want. Any line that
is preceded with a # symbol is information. The information here
is just telling what the Hostsfile is all about and how
to use it.

Now we are going to add our own domainnames (web sites) to this file – like www.myspace.com
(that’s a domain name).

Go to the bottom of the file and on a
new line, type the following 2 lines exactly as you see them here (press
return after the first line:127.0.0.1 myspace.com <RETURN>127.0.0.1 www.myspace.com <RETURN>

Press CTRL-S to save the file.

You did it – you added My Space with a phony IP address to the
Hostsfile. Now open up Internet Explorer and type www.myspace.com in the address bar
and press Return. You will go to a page that says, “This page
cannot be displayed.” Note: If you use Google, you may get a
page created by Google with a link to My Space. Click on the link – then
you will get the “This page cannot be displayed” page. Google is
always so good about wanting to help you out.

So, now you can add any web sites (Domain Names) you want to block to
your Hosts file. Use the same phony IP address, 127.0.0.1.

One last thing - Parents need to take control of internet
usage in the home. Here are some links with suggestions on how to supervise
the use of the internet at home.